


Misdirection

by tokaku



Category: Joker Game (Anime)
Genre: Actors AU, Episode 11 Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7207499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokaku/pseuds/tokaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a few seconds of waiting for Miyoshi to come out, Sakuma stood noisily from the foldable chair they gave him (it wasn’t his scene, but he’d wanted to watch), and stalked over to the coffin. He pried open the lid without much preamble, only to see Miyoshi with his eyes still closed, breathing hardly perceptible. He wasn’t even smirking, damn him, face still slack as if he was peacefully asleep.</p><p>He made a bad corpse, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misdirection

“And….cut!”

“Thanks for the hard work!” One of the cameramen shouted the standard phrase, followed by a chorus of quieter voices. Sakuma saw some of the ladies on the team crying, one using a handkerchief with Miyoshi’s chibified face on it to dab at her eyes. Somehow, the scene wasn’t devolving into the usual post-shooting chaos fast enough; people lingered in conversation with the director, their voices lowered as if to match the still somber mood. Cameramen were packing their equipment like they were slogging through a fog. 

Miyoshi was still in the coffin.

After a few seconds of waiting for him to come out, Sakuma stood noisily from the foldable chair they gave him (it wasn’t his scene, but he’d wanted to watch), and stalked over to the coffin. He pried open the lid without much preamble, only to see Miyoshi with his eyes still closed, breathing hardly perceptible. He wasn’t even smirking, damn him, face still slack as if he was peacefully asleep.

He made a bad corpse, really.

Sakuma flicked him on the forehead. The reaction didn’t come immediately, and then Miyoshi’s hand shot out to hit back, clipping Sakuma on the jaw harder than a flick to the forehead should have warranted. Miyoshi was frowning now, eyes opening a second later as Sakuma rubbed under his chin.

“Weren’t you supposed to wake me up with a kiss?”

“What kind of story do you think this is?” Sakuma sighed in exasperation. The blood on Miyoshi’s collar, but especially the flowers, was annoying for a reason Sakuma didn’t understand himself. So was the languid way Miyoshi pulled himself up, limbs heavy and less coordinated as if from a good sleep. Pretending to be a corpse for most of the shooting must have left him sore. Miyoshi’s flippant attempt to get out of acting it by suggesting they use a drug to simulate his death was of course shot down by the director, but Miyoshi was a professional and had seen the whole scene through. 

He still made a lousy corpse though.

“We’re done here, right? Come on, get up.”

Miyoshi continued to frown at him, probably wondering why he was in a hurry. Before they could make their escape, the make-up artists descended on Miyoshi, congratulating him and mainly just talking to him about his character rather than touching anything up. Someone threw a towel around his shoulders, because that seemed to be a thing somehow: ‘Shooting’s done, it was a bit hot, so here, have a towel.’ Miyoshi canted his head in polite interest and allowed them to fuss. 

Sakuma resigned himself with poor grace to probably waiting an hour for it to end, plodding over to one corner, where Johan’s actor was staring at Miyoshi with a look you might generously call admiration, if you wanted to deny noticing anything. Meanwhile, Yuuki was watching Johan with an expression that was equal parts amusement and calculation; his face wasn’t actually doing anything so openly emotive, but Sakuma had been around with them long enough to recognize what he was seeing. Yuuki gave Sakuma a brief glance and a nod, and Sakuma shifted awkwardly on his feet.

Miyoshi finally got out of the coffin. Immediately, people started bearing the coffin away with the other props. The frenzy of activity at least swept some of the people away, a tangible reminder that they were technically still working. Hatano picked up one of the red roses (also not his scene, but he had come to mock) and handed it to Miyoshi, whispering something that was no doubt sly but which Miyoshi only answered with a smile.

Sakuma met him halfway instead of making Miyoshi walk all the way to his corner. Then he followed Miyoshi to the locker room. 

“Here.” Miyoshi carelessly gave him the rose, pressing it down with a palm when Sakuma automatically held out a hand. Miyoshi kept his hand there for a moment, enough for Sakuma to register that Miyoshi’s hand was warm and a little sweaty. “Souvenir for waiting.”

Sakuma shook his head, absently pocketing the rose when Miyoshi retracted his hand. It would probably get squashed, but what the hell. “Don’t need something like this,” Sakuma said, and Miyoshi shrugged. There were people in the corridor, who exchanged the usual greeting with them: “Thank you for your hard work!” Miyoshi scratched idly at a patch of the fake blood drying on his chin. The fake blood, most of which was on his shirt and jacket, had an incongruously sweet smell.

“It’s flour, grenadine syrup, and chocolate syrup,” Miyoshi said, with his freaky mind-reading abilities. Sakuma wasn’t even aware he’d made any sort of reaction, and he’d thought Miyoshi hadn’t been looking at him. “Much easier to clean than tempera paint.” Miyoshi turned an amused smile at him, and Sakuma thought someone should make sure Johan didn’t see that smile; it would make him more confused. “If you want,” Miyoshi added sweetly, “you can lick it off.”

“No thanks.”

The easy banter wasn’t enough to distract him from that strange tight feeling in his chest. Even now, Sakuma was sure that Miyoshi didn’t make a good corpse. The idea that someone dead could look like they’re only sleeping was a lie Sakuma found out when one of his relatives had died. And Miyoshi’s character had died alone and in pain, even if he had been at peace with the outcome. Miyoshi’s corpse had the gall to look handsome, Sakuma realized. He was still sparkling as a corpse. It was, definitely, poor acting.

In the process of peeling off his clothes, Miyoshi turned his head to look at Sakuma inquisitively. “Why is all this bothering you?”

Because you’re a lousy corpse, Sakuma thought to say. But he thought more deeply about it, because the look Miyoshi was giving him, quiet and confused, had to be answered seriously.

“I… don’t know actually,” Sakuma finally said. An honest answer that he knew wouldn’t satisfy Miyoshi. “As part of the audience, I was waiting, I guess.”

“You were waiting,” Miyoshi repeated. 

“Yeah.”

Miyoshi gave a small sigh, finally peeling the shirt off. The fake blood was sticking to the skin of his abdomen, briefly distracting. Not bothering to scrub it off, Miyoshi pulled on a T-shirt, then shrugged on his perennial wine-red sweater. Next he pushed on his glasses, changing from Miyoshi to Maki.

It was a bit funny, actually, that his name was actually Maki, the actor acting as Miyoshi who had died while using Maki as an alias. Stranger things have happened, Sakuma thought. Somehow, he wasn’t willing yet to get out of character, even in his head.

“You could be romantic about it,” Maki advised.

“Huh?”

“Have you read Edgar Allan Poe’s “Premature Burial”?” 

“I’m not an idiot,” Sakuma immediately retorted. “…But I haven’t read it,” he admitted, while Maki sent him a fondly exasperated look.

“You should. It was one of the writer’s fears, actually. That he’d be buried alive and no one would be able to tell. You could say there’s a lot of literature where you’re given a corpse, and the reader decides what to do with it. Sherlock Holmes who survived the Reichenbach Falls. A character appearing from the dead and you’re left wondering: How?”

“Except you didn’t return,” Sakuma said. His voice sounded hollow to his own ears, and he realized that he’d been feeling a great deal of disappointment. More than that, an unaccountable sense of loss and loneliness. Maki was standing right in front of him.

“If it had happened to Tazaki, you would have accepted a theory that he’s alive more easily, wouldn’t you?” Maki said in fond tones. “A magician with tricks. Of course he’s alive.”

“His train also didn’t crash,” Sakuma pointed out woodenly. “And he didn’t puncture a lung. Your character would have suffocated in his own blood if nothing had been done. And if it had been so easy, why would the corpse even pretend to be a corpse instead of walking away?” 

Maki finally frowned at him, as if at a slow student. At least it wasn’t a look he got often now. “So wonder about for whose benefit I was playing dead.”

“The Germans, obviously.”

“And?” Maki prompted.

“They’re the only ones there,” Sakuma started to say, and paused. “Yuuki?” Which was, well. Sakuma didn’t know where Maki was going with it.

“If you think about it, the only way he’ll believe anything is if he saw the corpse. So let’s say that someone with Tazaki’s level of tricks had an accident happen to them and was badly wounded. But wasn’t it fortuitous? Maybe this someone has thought about freedom before; no, not freedom from the other spies, but freedom from having to follow the people above. From being used on simple errands for someone’s convenience. Do you think it’s never occurred to any of these spies to fake their own death?”

“For what, excitement?” Sakuma was incredulous. Sakuma still couldn’t see how Maki’s character could have survived. He _couldn’t have_ , but now Sakuma was starting to think of it as if it were a very real possibility. He wondered how much of it was only because he wanted to be convinced. But it wasn’t like he was waiting for a miraculous recovery; he didn’t really think he was that attached to Maki’s character. 

…Or he hoped he hadn’t become hopelessly attached anyway. Half of it was probably Maki, with his thick, horrible sweaters, the sleeves of which came down to his fingers. Cute, his mind supplied, the traitor.

But then, Johan had also been susceptible to this particular charm. That made Sakuma feel a little better about himself.

“Freedom,” Maki repeated. He sounded slightly wistful for a moment, looking at the space above Sakuma’s shoulder. Sakuma was going to ask about that later on, probably when they’ve had a couple of drinks after this. “But to get it, the corpse has to stay a corpse. If someone thinks that Miyoshi didn’t die, and proves it, that means he failed. He’ll be pulled back into the direction D Agency is heading towards, visible and accountable _and unable to control it_. So he only wins if he remains perfectly dead until the end of the story.”

 _This is just a theory of course_ , Maki laughed. He was using Miyoshi’s laugh, the soft, soundless laugh of a fox.

“And in this theory,” Sakuma said, “what will Miyoshi be doing after?”

“Helping out now and then, I imagine. Anonymously.” Maki closed the door of his locker. A pinned picture from Amari’s locker, which was beside his, fluttered to the floor, but Maki didn’t stoop to pick it up, only looked at it idly and shrugged to himself. It was the picture of a woman; Sakuma suspected Maki would have actually picked it up if it had been of Amari’s daughter. Even Hatano was weak against her.

“And you think the other spies won’t notice this anonymous helper and connect the dots?”

“Maybe they would, eventually. Maybe Lt. Col. Yuuki would have even approved.” Maki gave another expansive shrug, and as seamlessly as earlier, started walking, Sakuma falling into step beside him. “The thing about stories like this, Sakuma-san, is that your perception relies on the characters and the narrative to tell you what to believe. The characters believe it’s a corpse, so it’s a corpse. But haven’t you seen movies or read a book where the first corpse in a series of killings turned out to be the killer? And consider what happened in the train. In such a big accident, no one was expecting to find anyone alive, so they didn’t find anyone alive.”

“As simple as that?”

“Misdirection,” Miyoshi said. “Which isn’t actually simple at all until afterwards, when we’re just talking about it.”

Sakuma thought about that. They nodded a good-bye to Yuuki, who had lingered with the director and Hatano. Sakuma was a bit thankful he didn’t have to offer Maki a ride; Maki seemed to take it as obvious that he’d be leaving with Sakuma in Sakuma’s car. Sakuma hasn’t invited him yet to drinks though, but seeing Maki scratching at his stomach, rather obviously and pointedly, Sakuma decided they had to go to Maki’s apartment first so he could shower. Maki hated Sakuma’s small bathroom as if someone had designed it as a personal affront.

“And with that,” Maki said, when they were in the car, “are you satisfied?”

Sakuma drew in a breath. Maki was looking at him, honestly waiting for his reaction. His eyes were half-mast. Sakuma wondered how much of that was Maki being bored, and how much of that was conscious seduction. 

“Yeah,” Sakuma allowed, and added, not really meaning Maki’s theory and thrilling in the warmed, surprised blink he got, “For now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on camp 'let's ignore episode 11.' ^___^


End file.
